On 31 October, 2018 within the Erasmus+ PRINTeL Project a working meeting organized by GTU International Relations and Standards Office was conducted at GTU Innovations Center.

The meeting related to the organizational issues of ToT courses to be conducted within PRINTeL Project for GTU Professor-teachers. The representatives of International Relations and Standards Office and teaching staff members, who were selected within the Call for TOT courses, attended the organizational meeting.

As a result of the Call selection, 11 selected instructors from GTU will be trained within the frame of the programme in November-December 2018.

At the meeting Prof. Otar Zumburidze, Head of International Relations and Standards Office talked about the importance of such trainings for encouraging innovative teaching and learning methods at GTU and once again pointed out selected instructors’ commitments to undertake a five-day in-house training course (10 hours in total) for at least 10 GTU lecturers/teaching staff members within 3 months’ period after the completion of TOT training course.

The representatives of the Office gave general presentation about PRINTeL Project and its objectives as well as planned activities to ensure expected outcomes. They discussed practical details and arrangements related to upcoming TOT courses with selected candidates and answered the questions in which the meeting participants were interested.

FH Joanneum University of Applied Sciences (FHJ)

The preparatory work for the PRINTeL “Training of Trainers” course (5-9 November 2018) at FH JOANNEUM is in progress. The selected 20 teachers and heads of departments from universities of Georgia, Armenia and Belarus will attend 5-day intensive training course on “Hybrid/Blended Teaching and Learning”, coordinated by FH JOANNEUM (Department of International Management & ZML) in order to apply the gained knowledge and skills in their teaching practice.

Brest State University (BrSTU)

In the frameworks of ERASMUS+ CBHE PRINTeL project the ToT Candidates selection committee of Brest State University (BrSTU) announced a competition for participation in 5-day training courses that are going to be held at 5 Project partner universities (FH Joanneum Gesellschaft mbH (FHJ),Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven),Universidade do Porto (U. Porto),Linkopings Universitet (LiU), Universitat de Barcelona (UB). More than 50 BrSTU teachers were interseted in the competition. After the completion of candidates selection the BrSTU selection committee enrolled 10 out of 20 candidates in the main list of ToT courses participants. The number of ToT candidates included teachers and heads of departments of BrSTU.

The selection process underwent 2 stages:

completion of questionnaires, designed to check candidates’ eligibility to participate in the ToT courses,

interview organized by the selection committee.

The selected ToT participants signed a cooperation agreement with the BrSTU PRINTeL project coordinator.

Ilia State University (ISU)

Within the framework of ERASMUS+ CBHE PRINTeL project a 5-day intensive training of trainers (TOT) is envisioned for Ilia State University (ISU) trainer/lecturers. 15 ISU academic personnel will be trained to enhance the innovative and technological methods of teaching, which will then be transferred to at least 10 colleagues of Ilia State University.

ISU announced the open university-wide call on August 10 (deadline September 10), 2018 to select trainees to be the potential academic staff development trainers at ISU Teaching Staff Development Center (TSDC). 23 applications were received from 4 ISU schools. The selection of the TOT candidates has been carried out on a competitive basis by the special selection committee through assessing the credentials of the applicants and administering interviews with all candidates. The selection committee included ISU Vice-Rector for Research and Academic Affairs, Head of the Office of Human Resources, Head of Development Office Head/Project Coordinator, Quality Assurance Contact Points from each ISU School, and Education School field expert. 15 candidates were selected including 5 from the School of Arts and Sciences, 6 from the Business School, 2 from the School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, and 2 from the School of Law.

Belarusian State University (BSU)

The ToT candidates selection committee of Belarusian State University (BSU) registered 25 applications received from BSU teachers and working staff members. The main criteria considered during the selection were knowledge of a foreign language, competence in informational technologies and motivation. The members of the committee selected 15 teachers who would pass training-seminars on using innovative educational technologies in learning and teaching. The BSU teachers and working staff members who were not included in the main list of project participants were involved in the reserve list.

The trainings will be held in November-December 2018 in the following host universities:

FH Joanneum Gesellschaft mbH (FHJ),

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven),

Universidade do Porto (U. Porto),

Linkopings Universitet (LiU),

Universitat de Barcelona (UB).

For the purposes of the participants’ preparation for the trainings an organization meeting was summoned on the 27th of September, 2018. The BSU teachers got introduced with the structure of upcoming events, received recommendations concerning the preparation of necessary documents and had the opportunity to ask the questions they are interested in.